


In sickness and health

by aLoggedInReader



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky is grumpy, Budding Love, F/M, M/M, Natasha is a good friend, Quarantine, Thor is mostly just there to be there, because of course it is, it's all loki's fault, playing fast and loose with canon, set in a universe where "civil war" "infinty war" and "Endgame" did not happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:20:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27454894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aLoggedInReader/pseuds/aLoggedInReader
Summary: A pandemic is going on, so when Loki decides to wreak havoc the Avengers send out a team of three they think are a) more than capable of handling Loki and b) very unlikely to catch any disease.Turns out they are wrong on one account.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Loki/Steve Rogers
Comments: 59
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was written during the first lockdown in my country. The thought of having a couple Avengers and my favorite villain quarantined together was just amusing me to no end.

“You dastardly, villainous fiend! How dare you attack a city already battling disease?” Loki exclaimed vigorously into the silence that had fallen inside the quinjet shortly after his capture. It was bad enough that his brother and two of his so called friends had insisted upon spoiling the little bit of fun he had set out to have after proving that he could lay low and bear a rather dull everyday life for more than a fortnight. That they now decided to punish him with starting the boredom that lay ahead in whatever detainment they saw fit this time around early was entirely unacceptable! “Which by the way you knew nothing about until you had already set the serpent loose.”

  
Steve turned around and let the auto pilot take over completely to find his suspicion that Loki had not only decided to mock him in his own voice confirmed. It looked like Thor’s wayward brother had developed a certain fondness for taking on Steve’s - or rather Cap’s - appearance whenever he saw the slightest chance of making a mockery of him by imitation. Steve thought he was reasonably good at not letting Loki’s strange habit get to him and not showing when it was in fact grinding his gears too clearly.

  
“Seriously?” Steve commented in as much of an unimpressed tone as he could muster up. It still got Loki grinning widely enough for Steve to know that he had not succeeded in hiding all of his annoyance. To be fair though, not all of it was Loki’s fault exactly. The nagging headache that was slowly growing worse had only started after they had learned that they needed to apprehend Loki and before Loki had chosen to target him specifically.  
“He does a good impression of you, gotta say, Stevie,” Bucky pointed out with a slight grin that he could have concealed, but chose not to. After all, Steve usually said that he thought of Bucky’s somewhat newfound ability to just show his emotions, especially the positive ones, as something good. Bucky would not say that he was trying to prove Steve wrong exactly, but if it were to happen… .

  
“As much as I always appreciate hearing your opinion, my most faithful companion,” Loki started to rant in the most earnest tone he could - which was nowhere near as bad as what the original was capable of - before he used what little leeway Thor’s grip on his arm allowed to take a step toward Bucky and put his shackled hands on his shoulder in additional affirmation of his words.

  
“No touching!” Bucky stated in a hard tone, not losing a moment to brush Loki’s hands off with the back of his metal hand. He doubted the kind of god would be hurt by the harsh touch in the slightest, but he had a point to make anyway.

  
“I don’t talk like that!” Steve protested before he could stop himself. Okay, so maybe he could not always keep every last little golly gosh inside, but he was not talking as… Shakespearean as Loki made it sound even on a bad day!

  
“It’s not too far off,” Bucky commented with a shrug that was not quite as light as it would have been before Loki invaded his personal space. He would not go as far as to say that it had bothered him, but the line between Bucky and the Soldier was drawn in sand at the best of days. Missions in general did nothing to make the line any clearer and having enemy contact for a longer time… that line was more like a very light scratch, as things were.

  
“I shall now proceed with my one thousand and thirty sixth speech on the merits of honor, truthfulness and-” Loki started anew after the Winter Soldier - who would always be the Winter Soldier, even if everyone continued to insist on calling him Bucky - had derailed his previous attempt. He was very rudely interrupted by his brother’s palm over his mouth, in a manner that made it impossible to even part his lips enough for a good bite nevertheless. Oh the indignities!

  
“Thank you, Thor,” Steve sighed, before he turned back to the quinjet’s controls. The autopilot still did not need his help, but looking straight ahead at the clouds gave him less of a headache than continuing to look at Loki, who was still looking like him. Technically, Steve supposed he should not even have been able to develop headaches without a whole lot of blunt trauma - which very nicely did the job, as proven over and over again - but it was not completely new for him to suffer from tension related aches and what people these days considered psychosomatic symptoms. That was much nicer than saying that he was slowly going mad and had made another step on his way to the loony bin anyway.

  
“My pleasure,” Thor replied, ignoring the way his brother tried to get into a biting position in favor of studying the back of Steve’s head for a few moments. The Captain’s shoulders were drawn up closer to his ears than they usually were and he seemed a tad tenser than Thor thought he usually was around this stage of a mission. After all they were well on their way back to base, with minimal damage done to anyone or anything. The serpent Loki had set loose to terrorize the city had been rather ineffective all things considered… even if the effect Loki had meant to achieve was to draw the Avengers out for a fight.  
After all, it had been very quickly decided that only three of them would respond to the threat, because of an ongoing non-villainous threat no less. Midgardians and their delicate bodies that were all too susceptible to all kinds of illness… .

“Achoo!”

Bucky blinked once and watched Thor draw his palm away from Loki’s mouth and wipe it on his cape. That sneeze had not only sounded wet then. Bucky had seen his fair share of alien lifeforms lately and would have attested that of all of them Asgardians were at least not slimy and disgusting. Maybe an exception would have to be made for Loki after all.

“Achoo!”

This time around Loki’s sneeze was loud enough, not being muffled by anything, that even Steve turned around to look at the kind of God, who all of a sudden looked like himself once more. Granted, it had sounded like quite the sneeze, but Bucky would not have thought that it was possible to sneeze hard enough to change bodies. Then again… damn sorcerers.

“Achoo!”

Steve was not completely sure what exactly the sparks coming from something overhead meant, but they could hardly be good. As long as Jarvis did not give them a clear warning it was probably negligible, but mechanics and sparks were never a good combination!

“Hey! Quit the crap!” Bucky demanded, when Loki sneezed once more and another rain of sparks went down all around him.

“Why would I deliberately bring down this machine while I am on it?” Loki protested, sounding a little breathless and like he was gearing up for another sneeze.  
A sneeze that never came, courtesy of Thor lending his brother a hand, or rather a finger, that he held under his nose just in time to stop it.

“Since when does anything you do make sense?” Steve muttered, much to Bucky’s surprise. Not that he had not thought it, but for Steve to actually say something like that, sounding sour as a bunch of lemons no less, was still unexpected. Then again, Bucky had noticed that Steve looked a little off in the way he did when he wanted nobody to know that he was hurting. Ironically, the way he hid the actual symptoms in always the same way meant that everyone who knew him could immediately look through the charade.

“I resent that remark!” Loki argued, snapping in the general direction of Thor’s hand to get him to keep his dirty, brutish hands to himself. “That your brains are too primitive to understand-”

“Thank you, Thor,” Steve stated when Thor put his palm firmly over his brother’s mouth once again. That way the hour they had left on this flight might pass a little faster and in much more peace.

“Achoo!”

The crack of thunder much too close to the quinjet for comfort made Steve jump as badly as Bucky wanted to, even though he kept himself in check and did not move a muscle after all. He was tempted to point out that adopted or not Thor and Loki had the same strangely adorable way of sneezing for two grown ass men, but the moment both sort of Gods and definitely aliens on board started to display symptoms of a sickness was not the right one for jokes.

***+++***

“Two weeks?”  
“Unless all of you catch and beat the disease faster than that.”  
“Two weeks, Romanoff!”  
“I know what I said, Barnes.”  
“It’s going to be a slaughter house in here.”  
“C’mon, you said that Loki was the sickest one. Don’t tell me you can’t keep him in check like that.”  
“It’s not him I’m worried about, Red.”  
“Okay, I’ll tell Tony to send in a robot to collect all weapons.”  
“Like I couldn’t kill all of ‘em with my bare hands.”  
“I suggest you start with Loki and go on with Thor. That might take you long enough for quarantine to be over.”  
“Like I was ever considering doing it any other way.”  
“Be nice in there, soldier, and I might make it worth your while once you get out.”

Bucky was tempted to point out that after fourteen days of confinement alongside Loki, Thor and to a lesser degree Steve, Natasha would have to come up with the hell of all rewards for not killing them to make all of this anything other than a huge annoyance. The way Natasha was smirking - fucking smirking - at him over the screen said that she already had the right idea though. Well damn, Bucky was still not looking forward to it, but maybe worse things had happened to him.

***+++***

“I am going to kill him,” Bucky declared sometime around three in the morning. He was not technically so tired that he needed the sleep, but not sleeping meant consciously experiencing every minute of confinement and that was just not acceptable!

“No, you’re not,” Steve replied, immediately pressing his lips together tightly afterward like Bucky would not notice the very badly suppressed cough that way. Oh Steve was definitely not ill and feeling like crap. No, Sir, not Steve!

“Just a little pillow pressed over his face for a minute… or several,” Bucky suggested hopefully, because he was allowed to daydream. It could only be a daydream, since he was kept from actually sleeping after all.

“It would hardly make a difference, believe me I tried,” Loki commented with a casual wave of his now unbound hands. Apparently, Thor had been convinced enough that Loki was too sick to risk working any magic on them that might backfire due to his condition. At least, Loki had not made anything go up in sparks ever since he had been freed, so Bucky was willing to count that as a win.

“Yeah well, then what would you suggest?” Bucky barked when another of Thor’s mighty snores seemed to shake the entire quinjet.

“A dagger between the ribs,” Loki answered much too fast for comfort, though Bucky could grin at the suggestion. Steve on the other hand looked completely unimpressed and unamused. “I doubt it would kill him this time around, but he might have less air in his lungs to snore with.”

Steve groaned and rolled over, taking his pillow with him and pressing it over his head so he did not have to hear Bucky and Loki discuss the best ways for killing Thor. Not that Steve himself had not… to say that he had considered it would be overstating things. Thor was his friend and he would never want to harm him or wish any kind of harm to come to him, but… . Steve’s head felt like it was going to explode any second anyway and Thor’s snoring was really not making it any better. Unfortunately, he was also starting to feel definitely overheated in a way that made the suit very uncomfortable. Since everyone else was still wearing their battle outfits, Steve could hardly be the first to say screw it and go for something more comfortable, could he?

Steve thought he might have fallen into some kind of exhausted slumber for a while when Bucky’s elbow to his ribs woke him up abruptly. Being an absolute morning person, Steve did not tend to be grumpy upon waking up, but he was willing to make an exception in this case.

“What?” Steve barked, immediately feeling sorry when Bucky looked stunned for a split moment. He did not get the chance to apologize when he had to cough his lungs out before he could open his mouth for anything else again.

“Loki thinks he could take Thor’s voice away with minimal chances of making his head explode. Pro or con?” Bucky explained while Steve was still trying to catch his breath. At least, Bucky’s hatred for Thor’s snoring seemed to burn hotter than his worry over Steve’s health, which Steve was unironically grateful for that moment.

“I will not do it, if you are going to hold me responsible, just in case his head should explode after all,” Loki added, sounding much too serious for comfort. Then again, Steve could feel his head throbbing in the rhythm of Thor’s snores at this point and he was all too sure that the other two would not let him sleep until the situation was handled.

“Pro,” Steve decided, feeling bad about it, but since he was already feeling bad all around, it did not make that much of a difference.


	2. Chapter 2

“If you were serious about those fourteen days-”  
“Dead serious, James.”  
“If you were serious about those fourteen days, we’re all going to die in here.”  
“Don’t be dramatic. I imagine at least one of you will survive.”  
“Suicide, after I murder Steve.”  
“A very realistic risk.”  
“You don’t have to sit around while he heats up the whole fucking jet with his rising body temperature and claims he’s fine.”  
“Oh the hardships you have to endure, солнышко.”  
“Fourteen days, Red, it’s going to be more than hard.”  
“Is that a promise?”

Bucky flipped the camera the bird before he ended the call on Natasha’s still smirking - fucking smirking - face. He could really do without any sort of innuendo when they were only on day one of being quarantined in a jet that offered very little privacy. A phone call was one thing - and even then Bucky would not count on nothing being overheard - but anything that definitely demanded complete privacy was out of the question. On the plus side the mostly open space made everything feel less cramped and claustrophobic than it might have otherwise, but exactly that plus made for a huge negative when it came to privacy.

Actually, it was that lack of privacy that Bucky suspected would become the biggest issue soon enough. Bucky himself was definitely the lone wolf kind of person these days. He could hardly stand more than one person at a time most days, especially without a clear mission to keep him occupied and that very much included Steve, no matter how attached he was to the punk. Steve was more social for sure, but that did not mean a whole lot and Bucky was under the impression that people stressed Steve out especially on bad days. Of course, the idiot needed to uphold the image of an unfailing leader who was in control of the situation, even when he definitely was not.

As for Thor and Loki… honestly, Bucky did not know either of them well enough to be sure, but he had a feeling that while Loki was a drama queen who liked to be seen, he would not like to be seen in genuinely bad moments any more than Steve did. Thor might very well be the only person on board who could rightfully be described as social, which would no doubt become a problem as big as his snoring in no time.

“You must give me another clue, brother,” Thor was saying just as Bucky passed him by on the way to check on Steve. Thor it seemed was the one person who had slept very well and felt rested that day. He was the only one who had an appetite as well, if the ration packages he had in front of him were anything to go by.

“I must?” Loki questioned not quite as acidly as Bucky would have expected after being given what sounded by far too much like an order. Then again, there was that self-satisfied smirk on Loki’s face that said that Thor was playing right into his hand anyway, so that might explain it. “Very well then. I spy with my little eye something that, as previously mentioned, starts with either an i or an m. Another word to describe it would start with an o.”

Bucky was definitely not on the side of the villain here, absolutely not, but it was just too damn easy to play Thor for a sucker sometimes. Not that Bucky did it all that often, if only because something like that would call for more interaction than he wanted to have with most people. There were only two constant exceptions to that rule and one that depended on his day to day mood.

“Idiot, moron, oaf,” Bucky guessed on a whim. He did not want to play exactly, but he did not want to listen to Thor list all things that might start with either of the letters Loki had given him for the next couple of hours either.

“Imbecile,” Loki corrected, the goddamn smirk on his face widening when Thor finally caught on to the game Loki was playing, which did not seem to be the same one Thor had thought they were engaged in. At least it looked like Thor was pouty enough to just busy himself with his breakfast and ignore his brother for the moment. Thor’s chewing it had to be said was much less maddening than his snoring.

When Bucky had told Natasha that Steve was heating up the quinjet with his body temperature - that he tried to deny was any higher than normal - he might have exaggerated, but not by as much as Natasha would likely believe. Why the punk was trying to write a mission report under the circumstances was anyone’s guess.

“Stevie, get out of the stupid uniform,” Bucky ordered, trying - and failing - to keep the exasperation out of his tone. Technically, he was supposed to be the one who needed people to tell him how to act like a human being. Hell, Steve filled that role for him most of the time, since Natasha… well, she was only partly human at best herself. Yet there he was, the punk, acting like he had no idea that his body was flashing all the warning signals it could.

“I’m fine,” Steve insisted, having the gall to flash Bucky a reassuring smile on top of everything. Now and then Bucky was tempted to punch Steve in the perfect teeth as Stark had worded it very fittingly once and he was quite sure that it was not always a Winter Soldier urge either.

“You’re sweating through the thing and that shouldn’t even be possible,” Bucky pointed out dryly, crossing his arms in front of his chest to give them something to do that had nothing to do with punching anyone.

“Buck-” Steve started to protest, which he wisely stopped when Bucky gave him a hard stare.

“Look, those two are always dressed like that,” Bucky stated in the softest tone he could muster up that moment, which was not very soft at all honestly. Still, he supposed there were a few reasonable points he could make to at least give Steve the chance to make it look like he was listening to reason and was not just reacting to having his arm twisted, metaphorically. “Plus he’s apparently freezing over there despite all the-”  
Gesturing toward Loki and his getup that looked like it would provide plenty of warmth due to missing breathability alone, Bucky could not help noticing how Loki glared at him for daring to speak about the obvious. Like the emo alien was not shivering obviously enough every now and then!

“And I already took most of the tac stuff off. Your turn,” Bucky finished, focussing on the other stubborn idiot once again. “Stark didn’t send in the pajamas for nothing.”

“I’m f-” Steve started to protest once more, which Bucky stopped less subtly this time around. Maybe putting his hand over Steve’s mouth was not the greatest idea when so far it was a safe bet that Steve was infected while Bucky was not. Yet. All the restraint in the world would not have been enough to keep Bucky from doing just that though.

“Say you’re fine one more time and I’ll bend you over my knee right here and take your temperature to prove you wrong!” Bucky threatened in a deep growl that made Steve swallow reflexively. Good, he was taking him seriously then and understood that Bucky was not talking about one of those fancy one-second-in-the-ear thermometers either.

“Fine,” Steve relented before Bucky could make a move to reaffirm how serious he was.  
If Steve wobbled noticeably when he stood up to get himself a change of clothes that was something to be addressed later. For the moment Bucky would not say shit to stop him from getting comfortable at long last!

Besides, there was something else that needed handling as well.

“And you take another blanket, goddammit!” Bucky ordered, throwing one of the actually pretty nice blankets that had come with their care packages as soon as they had landed on top of the Avengers Tower and Stark had put them under quarantine square at Loki’s face. He was neither surprised nor disappointed when Loki caught the thing before it could hit him. As obvious as it was that he was sick, Loki was still an alien with abilities that were not to be underestimated.

“I would not have pegged you for the caring type,” Loki commented with a grin that Bucky thought was more to rile him up and distract from how quickly he unfolded the blanket and put it over his legs.  
What was it with all those oh so manly assholes and being unable to admit that they were ill?

Worst of all, Bucky would not even be able to rat them out to Natasha and complain to his heart's content, because he was sure Natasha had a couple of stories to tell of another oh so manly asshole that was somewhat close to Bucky’s heart. Bucky did not believe in karma - he would have been even more paranoid if he did - but there was something to the thought every now and then.

“Look, Lord Snarkypants, if you refuse to admit that you’re feeling like shit then you make things harder for Steve and when things are hard for Steve they are hard for me and I get really mean when people make things harder for me than they need to be,” Bucky hissed at Loki after getting all up in his face in a way he usually would not do. It would not do to have Steve overhear any of it though. As things were, Thor was the only one who was not making Bucky’s life harder by being difficult on purpose, but since he was apparently taking a post-breakfast nap and was already snoring again, Bucky would not give him much credit at all. “Plus we all know you’re an attention whore and a worse condition means more attention, so do us both the favor.”

The way Loki pressed his already thin lips together until they were nothing more than a nearly comically looking line in his face did not give Bucky all too much hope that he was considering the wisdom in Bucky’s advice. At least he was pouting in silence for the moment being. Bucky had a feeling like he would have to watch his surroundings very closely in the near future though, Loki was a trickster after all. The joke was on Loki anyway, since Bucky always watched his surroundings to begin with.

That was how Bucky immediately realized that Steve had come back even though Thor’s snoring was making it impossible to hear something much subtler like footsteps. The way Loki’s eyes flicked to Bucky’s left before he continued his pouting was all the sign he needed anyway.

“There, isn’t that all better?” Bucky asked much more seriously than he had meant to. The way Steve smiled at him for a moment because of it was nearly a little puzzling, but Bucky supposed it was just one of those things that reminded Steve of a Bucky he could not remember ever being.

“You’re talking like I’m all small and breakable again,” Steve pointed out, sitting down much more heavily than he usually would have. Small and breakable were definitely two words that did not apply to Steve these days and if Bucky still saw him that way sometimes - especially when his brain threw really weird things he could not fully comprehend at him - he was not going to admit it now.

“I’m talking like you’re sick and I don’t see a damn thing wrong with it,” Bucky replied gruffly, before he went to grab a bottle of water, unscrewed the cap and handed it to Steve. Thank Stark’s sense for comfort for the actually pretty nice seats around the quinjet that made resting easy at least. If the thought to force Thor to sleep on a rusty nail board, if only so he would not sleep deeply enough to snore, really appealed to Bucky that moment that was another thing he did not have to say out loud.

“Thanks, Buck,” Steve said instead of giving even the token protest Bucky had kind of expected. The fact that apparently Steve was feeling bad enough not to be difficult was not exactly boding well. At least he was nipping on the water and lying back without Bucky having to strongarm him into it that way.

“I am bored,” Loki suddenly announced, simply giving Bucky and Steve as much of a challenging look as a person wrapped in two blankets and a cape could.

“I spy with my little eye something starting with b,” Bucky deadpanned, which got the corners of Steve’s mouth twitching. Brat was definitely a word he was thinking of in connection with Loki as well then.

“I liked you better when you were willing to conspire against Thor,” Loki huffed. If he was thinking of the correct word or not Bucky did not know, but he had definitely caught on to the insult. Somebody apparently did not appreciate tasting their own medicine.

“Never said we had to stop doing that,” Bucky pointed out somewhat appeasingly. They were going to spend a lot of time together like it or not and with Thor sleeping the sickness away and Steve being too fatigued to do anything much, Loki might very well be Bucky’s one source of entertainment.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, people are reading this, so I thought I should add another chapter.  
> Would be nice, if someone felt like letting me know, if you enjoy this. :)

“Babe, doll, apple of my eye, light of my life-”  
“Thirteen days.”  
“Oh c’mon!”  
“It’s one day less than it was yesterday.”  
“I swear, if Stark and Banner don’t find a solution soon, I will give Stevie mouth-to-mouth!”  
“I don’t see the connection, but by all means, follow your heart, lover boy.”  
“As a way to get infected, Red.”  
“Mhm, sure.”  
“I don’t see any of the others getting stir crazy.”  
“Maybe, just maybe because none of them are well enough to be bothered by the circumstances the way you are?”  
“Now you’re starting to see the point.”  
“If you’re going to make out with anyone, stick with Thor.”  
“Red, you know I’m up for a lot of kinky shit, but-”  
“Sleeping and eating all day, sounds like it’d be heaven for you.”

Bucky did not grace Natasha’s stupid joke with an answer and instead switched the video call off without saying goodbye. That was not so slowly turning into a habit that Bucky thought he would have to beat sooner rather than later. It was not Natasha’s fault that he was in this maddening situation after all. If anything, Stark had been the one - next to Steve - who had pointed out that the ongoing virus outbreak meant that they had to be careful about who they sent to fight Loki. None of them had had any idea that all of them would be susceptible to it. All of them other than Bucky, apparently. Just his luck.

It was however Natasha’s fault that she had used extremely bad logic on him. No matter who passed the virus on to him, it would be the same damn virus. It was not like they would infect him with their set of symptoms that seemed to be rather different for all three affected so far.

“I hate you!” Loki was saying just when Bucky walked by, before he coughed so heavily that Bucky thought his face turned blue for a moment.

“What have I done, brother?” Thor asked between two bites of the poptarts he was stuffing his face with. It was eating time then, which would be followed by sleeping time, which would lead to more of Loki’s moping around instead of the bitching he was doing as long as his brother was awake to hear it.

“What have you not done?” Loki declared dramatically enough that Bucky was tempted to laugh. Really, he might have enjoyed having Loki around for a while under completely different circumstances. “Besides, I wanted it said in case of my demise.”  
Bucky barely held back a laugh and masked what he could not hold back with a cough that only drew more attention to him. Right, not a good diversion tactic under the circumstances.

To be fair to Loki, Bucky was quite sure that he was not lying completely, more like exaggerating to some extreme. Bucky had no problems believing that he was in fact shivering and coughing for real, Jarvis’ monitoring of all their vital signs backed that up as well. Unfortunately, it looked like Thor was not all that worried because of the theatralics, while Steve was in fact getting anxious. It was likely due to Thor’s continued disturbance of all their nightly rest, but Bucky was more tempted to whack Thor over the head and tell him to give his baby brother the goddamn attention he so clearly wanted already than he was to go and shake Loki until he stopped being a brat.

“Buck, you okay?” Steve asked, not unexpectedly, as soon as Bucky sat down next to him. He really should have just bitten his own fucking tongue off before ever giving the slightest fake cough. That was what Bucky’s life had come down to!

“Didn’t want to laugh in Loki’s face,” Bucky shrugged awkwardly. Where Loki’s face lacked whatever little color it usually had - other than those flashes of blue when he was coughing too hard - Steve’s was more rosy than ever. Bucky very faintly remembered seeing Steve’s face like that during amusing moments when he got very embarrassed, but also during other illnesses. Sure, Steve had been much smaller and much more breakable then, but he had not resembled the old Steve as much as he did that moment for as long as Bucky could remember. “‘Sides, what do you mean am I okay? You got a fever of a hundred and five or so!”

“One hundred and seven since 8:26 this morning, Sir,” Jarvis pointed out helpfully, which made both Bucky and Steve flinch.

“Okay, okay, I’ll find something to cool you down,” Bucky announced. He was pretty damn sure there were some cool packs in the medical kits they had been given. There also had to be a way to get some ice chips in here. What did Stark have all his fucking robots for?

“I’ll be fine,” Steve insisted, but there was the faintest hint of insecurity in his tone that Bucky immediately heard and did not like at all. Hell, Steve could march into a fireworks factory with a torch strapped to his back and be completely convinced that all would be fine. When he started to get nervous it was high time for everyone else to panic!

“You know who else said that, Stevie?” Bucky asked, hearing himself get really worked up, but unable to do anything against it. “Your mom.”

“Buck,” Steve attempted to raise some weak protest that would likely boil down to saying that the circumstances as well as the sicknesses were completely different. Bucky did not want to hear it anyway.

“No!” Bucky yelled loudly enough to startle Thor out of the light slumber he must have fallen into after brunch. “She was a damn fine woman and everything you got from her is a good thing, but don’t you dare… Don’t you fucking dare!”  
Steve did not get a chance to say or do anything before Bucky stormed off. All he could do was lie back and wait for Bucky to come back with whatever remedy he could get his hands on. Steve vowed to himself that he would play along with whatever Bucky thought of, if only to make Bucky feel better.

Not that Steve was in any condition to resist, if he was being honest. He would still insist that he could remember having had worse, but this was definitely memorable. Back in the day his much weaker body had not been able to take quite this much and had started to ache severely much faster. Steve had not thought that his super soldier physique could even come close to it, but there he was, sweating profusely thanks to a much too high body temperature, trying to ignore his splitting headache as best he could and just breathe through it all. It did not help that the breathing did not come quite as easy as it used to either. Other than Loki, he might not have been coughing all the time, but his throat felt uncomfortably tight all the same.

For once, Thor’s snoring was actually a rather welcome sound, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had fallen after Bucky had made his exit. How Thor could sleep that soundly under the circumstances was anyone’s guess… scratch that, Steve supposed he knew very well how Thor could sleep like that. It was not that often that Steve felt envious of someone, but that moment he definitely did.

Steve nearly missed the sound of feet padding over the metal floor of the quinjet over Thor’s snoring, but the fact that Loki was at least double as wide as usually with all the blankets he had wrapped around himself did not allow for him to move as stealthily as any other time. The moment Steve finally caught Loki’s movement from the corner of his eye was the one moment he got to consider that he would not be able to do a damn thing, if Loki had been biding his time and came to cut his head off - with Thor sleeping and Bucky somewhere else, there was nobody who would be able to intervene in time either. He did not even get the chance to raise his aching arms in defense before Loki opened his arms and thus his layers of blankets and just plopped down right on top of Steve.

“Wha-?” Steve wanted to ask something that definitely should be asked under the circumstances, even if he was not quite sure which question would have made it out of his mouth in the end. He never got to finish before Loki sneaked one hand under Steve’s shirt with some difficulty due to it sticking to his skin from all the sweating he had done and the other up to his forehead and he was hit by a blessedly icy feeling. “Holy hell.”

Loki only huffed out something that might have been a chuckle any other time and ducked his head under the Captain’s chin, going for as much contact between his own ice cold forehead and the Captain’s overheated throat as possible. He was still busy trying to figure out how he could get out of the several layers of socks he had put on over the past day and get his toes into contact with some of the heavenly hot super soldier’s skin when the Captain surprised him by bringing his hands to Loki’s back and with some hesitation let them wander under his reluctantly put on sweatshirts to get to more icy skin.

Deciding that there was absolutely nothing to win and everything to lose by saying even a single word in the situation, Loki simply closed his eyes and feigned sleep. He could let himself enjoy whatever warmth he could steal from the mortal for as long as it took for Loki to feel anything approaching acceptably fine again. Once that was done, he could always figure out a way to nib any friendly feelings the Captain might have foolishly developed in the bud. If he was a little surprised to learn how gentle the brutish oaf that resembled Thor too much for comfort could be, nobody ever had to hear of it and he himself would forget about it easily enough once they came to punches again.

“Huh, I lose my head for a minute and he finds himself a new buddy,” Bucky commented what was very likely a very short time later. Steve could not say for sure, since he had been too busy enjoying the chilling effect Loki’s presence had on his overheated body. He even might have drifted for a minute or two, but very likely not longer since Bucky would have hardly left for longer.

“Open up,” Bucky ordered next, sounding a lot calmer than before. Granted, if Steve looked even a fraction as much better as he felt… .

He still remembered his resolution to let Bucky do as he pleased in the name of helping him keep from panicking, so Steve opened his mouth to accept the ice cube Bucky was offering obediently. The slowly melting piece of ice made Steve aware of how parched his throat had been, so he did not protest when Bucky bent a straw until it was right at his lips.

“Y’know, Stevie, if I’d known that all you needed was the right partner in your bed…” Bucky joked once Steve had emptied a glass of water and was sucking on more ice. Apparently, the thought of Steve swallowing the ice cube whole and choking to death on it was something that Bucky considered acceptable.

“Buck-” Steve tried to say something, anything to make the moment pass faster. The fact that the ice cube was still rather big made it kind of hard to speak clearly though.  
“No worries, what happens in the quinjet stays in the quinjet,” Bucky declared with a damnable smirk that Steve hated as much as he loved it, since it was a whole lot like the Bucky of his youth. It was the smirk that said all too clearly that Bucky would always claim that he had of course told no soul, while going and spreading the story to a few select people anyway.

Steve only had so much energy to spare for worrying over who Bucky might tell about him using Loki as an ice pack while Loki was using him as a hot-water bottle though. The reprieve from the fever the actual ice combined with Loki’s icy limbs had given him was making him sleepy very quickly.

“Where’re you goin’?” Steve slurred, already more asleep than awake when Bucky moved to walk away once again.

“Just gonna talk to Nat. Nothing to do with you cuddling a super villain,” Bucky replied in a reassuring tone that was convincing enough that Steve did not question it under the circumstances. He thought he heard a strange clicking noise a moment later, but could not quite place it and thus chose not to worry about it.

Loki made a vaguely complaining noise when Steve moved his hands, but settled more firmly against Steve’s chest easily when Steve pushed his hands and arms more firmly under his sweater for more skin on skin contact. The thought that all this was going to be very uncomfortable soon enough disappeared in a wave of contentment when Loki’s bare - and when had that happened? - feet made contact with Steve’s calfs. Screw any and all regrets of tomorrow. Today had just gotten a whole lot more comfortable.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to Arcadii for leaving a review!

“Natasha, I don’t say it often enough, but I love you.”  
“Aww, that’s six times now you’ve said it.”  
“You’re counting?”  
“Say it too often for me to keep up, I dare you.”  
“I was serious. Red is love.”  
“You found the vodka.”  
“I so goddamn found the vodka! Thanks, doll.”  
“At least you’re easy to keep happy.”  
“Hey, this could’ve gone all sorts of wrong. I could’ve fallen into depression.”  
“Mhm.”  
“But nope, my baby does not only give me vodka, but cheeseballs too!”  
“Not to spoil your mood, солнышко, but you don’t even like cheeseballs.”  
“They have their uses.”  
“Glad to hear you’re having fun.”  
“Love you, Red.”  
“Seven.”

Bucky huffed out an amused breath when Natasha hung up on him after that. Actually, he was not really sure, if Natasha had told him that she loved him more than the seven times he had apparently said it now. Bucky was not going to doubt Natasha’s memory, but he would doubt that she found it any easier to be open about her feelings than he did.

Leaning back into his chair, Bucky first took another swig of the vodka that was about as good as Natasha actually saying that she loved him with words. Feeling the liquor burning down his throat - a sure sign that it was of the few and far in between kinds that could get him drunk - Bucky reached for another cheeseball and weighed it between his metal fingers. Getting the stupid cheese dust off them and especially from between the small metal plates later would be a hassle, but at least for the moment the future annoyance would be totally worth it. Bucky put the bottle aside just as a relatively silent grunt announced the incoming mother of all snores courtesy of Thor.

“Wait for it, wait for it,” Bucky muttered to himself, “He aims, he throws-” Following the cheeseball with his eyes until it landed square between Thor’s open lips, Bucky made a victorious gesture. “Score.”

After Thor’s face scrunched up for all of a moment, he swallowed and went right back to snoring. Bucky made another line on his scoreboard and went on to select his next missile.  
To be fair, ever since both Steve and Loki seemed to be stabilized and very likely slowly getting better, Bucky found it much easier to bear this entire quarantaine business. At the same time, the way Steve was basically sleeping it off while cuddled up to an equally sleepy Loki was not giving Bucky a whole lot to do. Alright, so two or three times a day he got to make sure that Steve got a good meal in and that the hygiene on the jet did not get too bad, but other than that Bucky was free to just be bored. Strangely enough Bucky was starting to sort of like appreciate the downtime. He could not quite remember the last time he had not been supposed to do anything or be anywhere. Then again, maybe that was just the vodka talking.

Rolling his shoulders for a moment to get the stiffness from all the inactivity out of them, Bucky grabbed another cheeseball and continued his game. Maybe he could get to twenty points before Thor either woke up, or choked on one of the treats.

When Steve woke up, it was to a sound that was both terribly familiar and completely out of place. For a moment, he could have sworn that the past two and a half years had never happened, or actually much more than that… . Steve felt like he should have been about half of his current size all things considered and the person breathing into his neck should have been wider and much warmer.

The moment Steve remembered where - and when - he was, it very quickly became more surprising that for once Loki was apparently spooning him. Sure, Loki had complained a couple of times that he did not particularly like having Steve at his back and being treated as the little spoon, but that was the position they had found themselves in basically every time. At least this position gave Steve the chance to actually scan the room for the source of the noise that had woken him up. For once it was not Thor’s snoring, which apparently he had grown used enough to to ignore it nearly completely. Bucky on the other hand only ever really snored when he was drunk, which had not happened all that often in recent memory.

“I always thought you were the Midgardian equivalent of my moronic brother, but I suppose your friend may be a better fit,” Loki commented, extracting his hands so he could roll onto his back and clasp them together in front of his chest instead of holding on to the Captain’s. For the moment Loki was feeling warm enough and too aware of the proceedings to take the indignity for a little extra comfort. 

“Hey,” Steve automatically protested. After all Bucky had been looking after them for the past days and was more than entitled to some good sleep at last. Then again, looking past that, Loki had in his own strange way just said that Steve was not as bad as he had assumed. “Thank you, I guess?”

“It was not meant as a compliment to you,” Loki clarified dryly, since the Midgardian had chosen to interpret his statement completely wrong.

“Oh thank God, I almost thought you were warming up to me,” Steve deadpanned, rolling onto his back at last, which left him in a decidedly less strange position than he had been, while also bringing him closer to Loki once again. There was enough space for both of them, but only barely. The less out of his mind from sickness Steve felt, the more he became aware of the very unusual almost intimacy of the situation. Granted, it was still necessary for both of them to help regulate each others body temperature, but the more about comfort rather than survival it became, the more Steve had to confront the fact that this might as well be the most physical contact he had gotten since he had been thawed out. Scratch that, it might very well be the most contact he had ever gotten.

“I would not go that far, but I must admit that you have been warming me up nicely,” Loki retorted with a grin that was mostly meant to make the good Captain feel a little embarrassed.

Unfortunately, it seemed to work too well, resulting in the kind of silence that was grating, even without the combined snoring of two oafs for background noise. Granted, the Captain tended to say things that made Loki want to mock him for them before he was even done speaking, but his voice at least was weirdly pleasant to listen to. Luckily, the Captain was at least equally bothered by the silence, judged by how quickly he decided to break it.

“Are you hungry?” Steve asked, sitting up gingerly. He was immediately feeling dizzy, but he would dare say that it had been worse before. Maybe the worst was behind them and they only had to wait it out for another couple of days. Steve did not like that prospect too much, but he could definitely live with it. “I could go for some soup myself and - uh - I kind of have to get up anyway.”

“Well, if you must,” Loki replied noncommittally. At least, the Captain’s noisy friend never asked and simply handed them food and drink at rather consistent intervals, keeping Loki from having to ask.

Steve huffed out a laugh that Loki very likely would not identify as such when it smoothly transitioned into a groan as he forced his aching limbs to cooperate and let him stand. He really could hardly wait for this stupid sickness to run its course and leave. Steve would have gladly gone without ever experiencing all these symptoms again in his lifetime, but at least he was much better equipped to standing them these days.

When Steve was done freshening up a bit - and sending quiet thanks to Tony for equipping the quinjet with more things than strictly needed on normal missions, but definitely needed in this situation - he set out to find a tin of chicken soup. Heating up a tin was something he could definitely handle, Bucky’s help would have been in the very least much appreciated for anything more elaborate. For a moment, Steve wondered if anyone other than him even knew that Bucky could actually cook rather well, but he supposed it was one of these things Bucky did not go around advertising. For some reason Steve could not fathom, it often seemed like Bucky was not that comfortable making an actual connection to anyone that was not Steve. Natasha might be a bit of an exception, if the sneaking around those two had done - and probably thought Steve had not noticed - was any indication. One of these days Steve might have to figure out, if Bucky understood that Natasha was a shame- and merciless flirt, which might or might not mean anything more. Steve did not particularly like the idea of Bucky getting his heart broken after everything he had already been through.

Walking to the hot plate to get the soup ready, Steve caught sight of Loki poking Thor in the shoulder and when that got no reaction at all taking a strand of his hair and tying it to the chair Thor had fallen asleep in. For a moment, he considered telling Loki to quit the crap, but all things considered, the prank he had come up with was harmless enough. Steve really did not want to anger Loki and get him thinking of any really mean tricks he could play on them. Besides maybe, just maybe, Steve could see the humor in that kind of prank.

“Cook faster,” Loki demanded not even five minutes later when Steve was in fact nearly done. He was in fact somewhat tempted to use that moment to point out that Loki had not even requested any food and was lucky to get anything, but before Steve could make any kind of reply in that vein he noticed the slightly blue tinge to Loki’s lips and stayed quiet. Loki could probably use the warmth, but the stubborn ass would likely refuse to have any of the soup, if Steve antagonized him.

“You are demanding,” Steve pointed out mildly instead. 

“Well of course, I am royalty,” Loki agreed easily, proving Steve right in his assumption that being demanding would not count as a bad thing to him. “Besides, you are overheating again.”

Steve was about to say that yes he was feeling hotter by the minute, but could still stand it for another while, when Loki was suddenly standing right behind him and snaking his hands back under Steve’s shirt. The task was definitely made easier by the t-shirts Steve wore these days that were a lot baggier than what he typically wore.

Sucking in a breath the moment the iciness of Loki’s hands hit him once again, Steve made no attempt to get away. Loki was right, he was overheating again, though what Loki of course neglected to mention was that Loki himself was cooling down faster than Steve was heating up. Of course, saying as much would mean to admit that Loki was getting something out of their current arrangement and was not… doing it out of the goodness of his heart. The thought made Steve frown before he was even done thinking it. Loki was not the type to even pretend he was doing something just to be nice. Actually, it seemed that he would rather not do something than let himself be accused of being better than he had to be. Not that Steve could even start to understand someone like Loki to begin with.

“If I didn’t know better, I might think you enjoy this,” Steve finally decided to say when he was just about ready to hand out the soup he had made. That way Loki would have a few minutes of being mad at him before he needed him for warmth again. That was if Steve was pushing just that little bit too far this time around.

“I am glad you are at least intelligent enough to know better,” Loki snarked, before he reluctantly extracted his hands from under the Captain’s clothes and took the offered bowl instead. At least that thing was hot and did not ask stupid questions.


	5. Chapter 5

Steve was on the phone with Coulson at the time Bucky would have been on the phone with Natasha usually. That was not the only reason it was pissing him off royally though. The fact that Coulson had the nerve to just call Steve like he had not pretended to be dead for a fucking long time… . Now granted, it was not exactly Coulson’s fault alone. Apparently, Fury had been in command then, which meant that Fury was more at fault really, but Bucky did not feel like he could dish out much of a punishment on the man he had tried to kill twice.

And there was the little affair with a box of shit - literally - being sent to a formerly top secret PO Box that belonged to the man. Bucky was not proud - not too proud anyway - to admit that he had spent much too long to find said PO Box. In his defense though, he had not had a whole lot to do when Steve first brought him back to New York and made him move in with him. He had also been more Winter Soldier than Bucky for a while, which was not the best excuse, but would shut up most people who would call him out on sending shit to Fury anyway. By the time he had realized that he was in the process of doing something that was a Winter Soldier thing and not a Bucky thing, he had already been too invested to stop, which was the god honest truth.

Besides, Natasha had shown him the website that offered the service of sending such wonderfully nasty boxes to people who had pissed you off to begin with. He was not going to use that as an excuse unless he wanted Natasha to do much worse than pay for the service to him.

Bucky all of a sudden very randomly wondered, if Coulson had a PO Box as well.

“I spy with my little eye, something starting with d,” Loki suddenly stated, wrapping the warmest blanket he had found around himself more tightly. If Loki was already starting to feel overly cold, though not as excruciatingly so as he had in the beginning of all this, it stood to reason that the Captain would be heated up to the point of discomfort as well. Hopefully he was smart enough to cut his talk with the underling short and return to act as Loki’s space heater before long.

“Whole lot of dickheads in here, be more specific,” Bucky huffed. Technically he supposed that if the word starting with d Loki was thinking of was in fact dickhead he would be speaking about Thor before he ever considered Bucky or Steve. He really did not think that Loki was talking about anything alike and was mostly just trying to convey his disinterest in the stupid game by being difficult though.

“Something starting with p,” Loki gave another clue, as if he had not detected the blatant annoyance.

“Who’s got their privates uncovered?” Bucky deadpanned, throwing a side-glance toward Steve, who was still conversing with Coulson for all it looked like. Bucky could only see his back, but the tension in Steve’s shoulders combined with the sweat beading at the nape of his neck did not make it look like he was having a nice chat that he should continue having while he was still sick.

“Oh how I wish,” Loki commented with a sigh that Bucky would have called dreamy, if it had been more than at most half honest. It never paid to overestimate how earnest and truthful Loki was being at any moment, Bucky had learned that much since he had joined the Avengers and had gone up against Loki and his more or less laughable schemes a couple of times. On second thought, Bucky corrected the number down to maybe a third honesty and two thirds trying to get a rise out of Bucky or something like that.

“Just a second, maniacal monarch,” Bucky stated harshly when Loki moved to stand up. Chances were that the reason why Bucky still had his left hand even though he had just used it to grab Loki’s blanket and pull him back into the chair against his will was that Loki was still sicker than he wanted to let on. The same more than likely applied to Steve, which really only made Bucky want to get himself access to the internet and order a little something for the agent who was still annoying him after all. First things first though. “Not blaming you for wanting to tap that after all the cuddling.”

“I feel like there will be a but to that statement,” Loki commented dryly, giving Bucky an unimpressed stare that would have been much more menacing, if he had had the strength to back it up. He could back up the smirk that followed with a verbal argument at least. “There certainly is a butt to it.”

“What are you, five?” Bucky groaned, running his palm over his face to reaffirm how painful that pun had been. “That big, mushy heart has been broken more often than it should’ve been - which would have been zero, zip, zilch just to be clear - and I’ve done some of the breaking myself. Not gonna watch someone else doing it all willy nilly in the future. We clear?”

If Bucky had not seen how fond Steve had grown of Loki over the past days, he would still have given Loki the same talk, but he would not have thought it was quite as necessary. Steve could, to an extent, take care of himself after all. His sense of self-preservation could not be trusted once Steve’s too damn big heart got involved though.

“Perfectly,” Loki retorted, before he stood up once again and went to wait for Steve to be done with his talk already. If Bucky wanted to be optimistic, he would have said that Loki went away to sulk and await the return of his crush, but if he was being realistic, Loki was thinking of all the ways he could use Steve’s crush against him later on.

That at least gave Bucky something to work on while they were trapped in the quinjet, if he had to find something positive about the entire mess.

“Sorry, Buck, Coulson just wouldn’t…” Steve started to explain, before he took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair and started all over with less obvious frustration. “They think that once this has run its course they could maybe use my blood to find antibodies that would help everyone else.”

“I don’t like the idea of any lab getting their hands on your blood,” Bucky commented well before Steve was done talking. Not that it was his decision to make and telling Steve what he should not do had never worked that well to begin with. What did Bucky know to begin with? He also would have told Steve not to be an idiot and let some weird formerly German scientist put him into a machine that had not been tested on anyone before and that had worked out just fine. Then again, this time around it looked like Steve agreed with Bucky, which was nice for a change.

“That’s what I said, but…” Steve replied, immediately ruining it, like the incorrigible punk he was. He obviously still did not like the idea and thus agreed with Bucky, but was about to tell him all the reasons why he had to disagree with him anyway. “Look, it’s not like I don’t leave blood samples all over the place in a real fight anyway.”

“You’re gonna do it,” Bucky snorted, trying and failing to feel not so sour about it that he would chew Natasha’s ear off telling her just how sour he felt about everything later on. He had better things to discuss with his kinda girlfriend, sorta life partner, pretty significant though undercover other.

“I don’t want to wonder, if I could’ve helped save any of the people dying from this later on,” Steve explained as best he could, which Bucky really did not want to react too impulsively to. The first thing that had come to him had been to say ‘So what? Screw them. Not your fault.’ which he was sure Steve would detest for more than one reason. For one, it was not a way of thinking Steve could understand, but maybe more importantly it was a way of thinking Steve did not feel should be as ingrained in Bucky’s mind as it was. As for Bucky… well, he was not entirely sure, if it was all the Winter Soldier and not at least some of him that was talking that way. Not that he liked knowing that innocent people were dying or anything, but that was just how the world worked.

“Don’t complain to me if you got a bunch of Steve Rogers clones running around in the future,” Bucky remarked instead, shrugging casually. “Cause that’s how you get clones!”

“I’m too tired to argue about this anymore, Buck,” Steve admitted with a defeated sigh. His head was pounding and he was feeling by far too warm. All he wanted to do was to go back to bed and if that included having Loki wrapped all around him to cool him off while he warmed Loki up, that was really just a nice part of it all.

“You gotta be really sick still,” Bucky stated with a low whistle. “Pretty sure your bunk buddy is already waiting for you anyway.”

If the way Steve blushed was too funny not to feel gratifying, Bucky could use that feeling to push everything less positive away before he went to use his chance to talk to Natasha. 

“So, Steve’s getting himself an evil alien lover and a bunch of clones.”

“Sounds like he’s going to have his hands full.”

“Yeah well and who’s going to suffer for it?”

“Steve.”   


“Besides Steve, Red.”

“Nobody, if you’re starting to let the young grasshopper just do his own thing, дедушка.”

“Who are you calling a grandpa?”

“The one of us who’s officially a hundred years old.”

“Tell me I look that age and I’ll leave you for… Tina Turner.”

“If a better singing voice than mine is what gets you going these days… .”

“She was the first old woman to come to mind.”

“Use that as a pickup line and you’ll have her swooning in no time.”

“Sure, but until then I’ll just keep calling you.”

“You do that. Best part of my days.”


	6. Chapter 6

“How upset do you think Thor would be, if-?”

“You’re not killing Loki.”

“It was a hypothetical question.”

“You wouldn’t even know how.”

“Beheading works for just about every living thing.”

“You are not going to try and kill Loki.”

“It’s more like… you should see how he behaves around Steve these days! I swear, the virus has gone to his head and is making him into some sort of flirty zombie. Pretty sure he wouldn’t want to live like this.”

“You’re still not killing him, James.”

“At least it doesn’t seem to affect Stevie that much.”

“Doesn’t it? Or is he just being completely oblivious?”

Bucky huffed out a laugh. Agreeing verbally was not necessary when both of them already knew that Steve was in fact utterly unable to see that Loki was definitely flirting blatantly. There were only so many times a guy could ask another guy to pretty please warm up his hands before it became less about comfort and more about wanting to hold hands. That was not even to mention all the times Loki had very conveniently stumbled just in time for Steve to catch him over the past days. At first, Bucky had assumed that Loki was trying to get on his nerves more than he actually intended to flirt with Steve, but the longer it went on… .

It did not help that Bucky knew that Steve would actually kind of like the attention, if he understood what was going on. There were a whole lot of things Bucky could not always, if ever remember correctly, but he did know what Steve looked like when he liked somebody and thought it was so hopeless that he never even considered it might not be. In this case, Bucky was kind of glad that Steve was realistic about his chances of wining and dining a freaking super villain. Not even a reformed super villain - like Bucky himself for example, not that Bucky was on the market - a very much active one!

If Steve had been somebody else, Bucky might have been able to see the appeal, for something like the prospect of amazing hate sex. Steve was not the type for that sort of thing though. Hell, Steve probably did not even know that something like hate sex existed and could be amazing. Granted, Stark might have told him about the concept over the years, but even then Bucky highly doubted that Steve understood how that could work.

Since Bucky was stupid enough to go to bed with those thoughts still on his mind and without drinking enough vodka to water them down some that evening, he found himself tossing and turning with nightmares of Steve dragging him to a mall to find the perfect box of chocolates for his first date with Loki. 

* * *

“I remember this stage of sickness,” Steve whispered when he was absolutely sure that Loki was in fact awake and just trying to relax enough to go back to sleep. Judged by the lighting inside the quinjet, Steve figured it had to be the middle of the night. That Thor was snoring heartily did not really mean anything. Apparently, Thor could sleep anywhere anytime and it was not even only about him being sick, as Loki had remarked a day or two ago. Granted, Steve could not be completely sure, if Loki had spoken the truth, but he tended to believe that he had. “And it really sucks.”

Loki said nothing and for a moment Steve considered that he had been wrong after all. After sleeping this close to Loki for over a week though, Steve thought he knew what Loki sounded like when he was not considering every breath he took carefully though. How somebody who thrived on the chaos he could cause as much as Loki did could be one of the most controlled people Steve had ever met, he was not sure. It was intriguing much like it was fascinating how Bruce kept himself in check though. Of course, there were certain things about Loki that had caught Steve’s attention that he would have never looked for with anyone else. Steve certainly did not go around wondering what other people’s hair felt like to the touch, for example.

“Feeling bone tired, but having slept so much already that you can’t sleep no more,” Steve elaborated, even though Loki had not asked for it. Then again, if you waited for Loki to give clear signs or just speak his mind, you might as well wait forever. 

“Speak for yourself,” Loki replied, not bothering to give the impression that he had in fact been sleeping and Steve had woken him up. Steve was willing to take that as a win anyway.

“I was,” he went on whispering, even if Loki had not bothered to keep his voice lower than normally. He also had not raised it either though. “Kinda worried about waking everyone else up, or keeping them up, too.”

Steve supposed he could or should count the fact that Loki did not point out that he was definitely only speaking for himself when it came to that worry as another win. At least, he was relatively sure that Loki would have no qualms about waking everyone else up just for the heck of it, if he felt like doing it. Loki was definitely not shy when it came to letting Steve know when he was not feeling well the moment he felt inconvenienced and thought Steve could solve the issue for him. He did not know that Steve actually… he did not really mind or anything.

“Well, perhaps… I could attempt a simple spell,” Loki offered after a few moments of silence. “To make sure we are not overheard.”

“For the sake of everyone else,” Steve agreed, loosening his arm around Loki to let him turn over, only then noticing that he had held on quite that tightly actually. Oops, that called for distraction. “And I guess you’d get tired again, if you have a little workout of that sort, right?”

“Mayhap,” Loki huffed, sounding faintly amused before he muttered something under his breath that Steve doubted he would have understood, even if he had been able to hear clearly. What he had heard sounded like… magic. It sounded magical, felt magical… .

“You know, that kinda stuff is really amazing,” Steve breathed, still not talking more loudly, even though he was positive he could have without waking Bucky or Thor at that point. Reverence did not lend itself to speaking loudly though.

“I suppose you mean to say I could do a lot of good instead of using my gift for wrecking havoc,” Loki snorted, taking Steve completely aback. Maybe he should have meant what Loki was accusing him of, but he had in fact only wanted to say that Loki’s magic was breathtaking. Hell, it was even when Loki used it to do all kinds of stuff ranging from mischief to actual villainy. The harmless stuff was what gave Steve the chance to actually take a moment to appreciate it though.

“If you chose to,” Steve shrugged, trying to be careful about voicing a preference that Loki would reject just for the hell of it. At least, Thor seemed confident that Loki would come around eventually and sometimes Steve thought that Loki had already started showing small signs of toning down the villainy over the past months. “It’d save us some Saturday afternoons and jet fuel for sure.”

Loki considered Steve’s face for so long that it became uncomfortable, but finally found what he was searching for and allowed himself a chuckle at the joke.

“When I was a child I used to be ill during the height of Asgard’s eternal summer all too frequently,” Loki stated conversationally for his standards after another few long moments of silence. Since they were both awake already they might as well talk. “I never knew how glad I was to leave those times behind.”

“Brooklynn winters for me,” Steve replied when Loki did not speak on. He could only guess at what Loki had meant to tell him, other than the obvious. There had to be something else, but Steve could only ignore it or risk missing the mark completely. Luckily he was rarely afraid to take risks. “Makes you feel like a real failure to be unable to stand the climate of your own home.”

“I commend your attempt, Captain, but you and I are not alike and will not find common ground,” Loki stated dryly, but not in the same way that he would have, if he had been telling the truth. Steve thought he knew what Loki sounded like when he got exasperated with anyone’s perceived stupidity and this was not it. 

“Maybe not,” Steve said regardless, even though he was sure that he had heard correctly and Loki was actually displeased with him having understood something he had not been meant to. “It’s just… sometimes when I see what you get up to these days… I mean, c’mon, you wanted to draw us out with that stunt you pulled. You wanted to show off and you wanted the attention.”

Of course, Steve was pushing his luck, especially since Loki was so damn close to him and it would be hard to make the others notice what was going on with the soundproofing Loki had done. Then again, Steve had not been actually scared of Loki in a while and did not plan to start again.

“I fail to see how any of these assumptions apply to you, since you are presumably speaking as much of yourself as of the version of myself you have made up in your small Midgardian brain,” Loki commented with a light and utterly unconcerned wave of his hand. There were a great many people who thought they knew Loki, or had known him and thus could tell him who he was. Loki had never made it a habit to listen to any of them and he would not start now of course. It was interesting that Steve of all people was trying to join those ranks though.

“Have you seen the costume I wear?” Steve deadpanned, even if he had to admit that most of the time he was not consulted before the very last planning stages for a new design and then it was too late for fundamental changes. If Steve had been asked, he would have preferred a whole lot more dark blue than he usually wore. He did like the star on his chest though, so there was that. “Seriously though, I know what it’s like to be overlooked next to someone else all the time. Never got rid of the feeling either. I mean, Bucky’s still Bucky. Most of the time he has to try really hard to disappear in a crowd, while I put my effort into being noticed.”

Of course, things had changed since Bucky had returned, but the old patterns were still undeniably there, especially on Bucky’s really good days. Technically, if they were talking about the fact that people were noticing Captain America wherever he went, then Steve had no leg to stand on, but there was barely anyone who noticed Steve when he went out as Steve with no mission. Actually it was quite funny how Steve would have liked to be noticed a little less when he was out on missions as Captain America half the time, but would not mind being seen a bit more often as simply Steve.

“You are a lousy liar,” Loki stated seriously, before he frowned deeply and continued, “Lousy enough, that I might have to assume that you believe in what you just said.”

Steve could only chuckle in embarrassment, for a lack of solid arguments against Loki’s assessment. It did not help that Loki’s face took on a serious expression that Steve had seen quite a lot, but did not seem fitting in the situation. By all means they should have been joking around stupidly and not get all serious, yet here they were.

“I could have overlooked your friend in many a battle,” Loki admitted with a slight grin, before he brought his hand up to tap his finger against Steve’s chest, right where the star on his uniform would be. “You, I notice immediately, every time.”

“I’m not talking about… I’m not talking about Captain America. Everyone notices him,” Steve replied, swallowing more thickly than he could explain by being maybe a little disappointed. Not that Loki had been given much of a chance at seeing Steve rather than Cap when they always met on different sides of the battlefield.

“Well, if you wanted to join in on one of my schemes one of these days,” Loki offered offhandedly and in an amused tone, but still sounding like he would take Steve up on the offer, if he made it. It did not help that Loki had just made it all too obvious that they were in fact thinking along the same general lines, but with completely different details.

“There are other ways to get a whole lot of attention,” Steve pointed out, putting his hand on top of Loki’s on his chest.

“You forget, Steve, that with or without the armor, I am still Loki,” Loki replied, not allowing any of the other thoughts going through his head, let alone the emotions he was feeling to influence his answer. The circumstances were extraordinary as things were, but soon enough everything would be back to normal. He should have known that the Captain would look too deeply into everything and attach too much meaning to allow for a little fun with no strings attached from the start.

With that thought firmly in mind, Loki turned back around, unwilling to give up the warmth that came with being so close to Steve anyway. Why punish himself for someone else’s stupidity?

Loki was nearly asleep again, the simple spell having depleted his energy levels more than it ever should have when he felt Steve press a little closer to his back and putting his arm back around him.

“You’re a damn good liar, but you don’t even believe that yourself.”

Loki did not allow himself to shiver from the words or the fact that they were spoken so closely to his neck that he could feel Steve’s warm breath like a caress. Instead he kept his eyes closed stubbornly and willed himself to relax until he slipped into a restless sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

“Fuck me sideways, Tasha.”

“Here and now?”

“I could hug you.”

“You could.”

“Never knew you looked that good in yellow.”

Natasha very likely had something to say to that, but Bucky did as she had said he could and just crushed her against his chest before the quip left her lips. Screw the hazmat suit and the fact that there was no way for them to make actual skin on skin contact - which to be fair was exactly what the suit was supposed to do, so great job there - Bucky would not let that bit of plastic keep him from kissing his sort of girlfriend, kind of sordid affair, most definitely beloved Russian super spy after over a week of forced distance.

“In my memory you were a better kisser,” Natasha deadpanned, an amused smile gracing her lips.

If Bucky had not been much too hyped up on all sorts of happy hormones just then, he might have felt insulted. As things were, he simply vowed to himself to show her a damn good kisser once they actually got out of the plane. 

“Fuck me sideways,” Steve muttered, not low enough not to be overheard. Judged by the look on his face, he had seen the little scene Bucky had caused then. Right, Bucky had never exactly told Steve that this little thing between him and Natasha had been going on for… quite a while now. Not like Steve had asked or anything.

“Sorry, Stevie, but this,” Bucky replied, gesturing between himself and Natasha for a too long moment, “Is absolutely exclusive.”

“Language, old man,” Natasha added after raising an eyebrow at Bucky’s insistence. They had never discussed their relationship in terms like ‘exclusive’ before after all. Luckily, it just so happened, that the term applied anyway.

“Sorry, I-” Steve started to apologize automatically, before he even felt his ears turn hot. By that time it was not only from the embarrassment of walking in on Bucky and Natasha kissing, but also from swearing and being reprimanded for it.

“You’ll bleed for this,” Natasha commented casually, lifting the med kit she had brought along. As these things went, it was hardly a threat, since Steve had volunteered to give some blood anyway. The fact that Natasha had jumped on the chance of being the one to go in and draw it had less to do with Steve and more with making sure that Bucky was not acting quite as unhinged in person as he had sounded over the videophone now and then. Natasha had not worried too much, but maybe a little. 

Admittedly, she also wanted to see how Steve and Loki were doing for herself for once. To be honest, Bucky’s description had made her curious. Since she fully expected Loki to hightail it out of there the moment he saw a chance, this might be her one opportunity to see for herself.

“They’re trying to make clones, aren’t they?” Bucky questioned, nodding toward the small case that was definitely filled with needles and other stuff Bucky wanted to have as far away from him as possible. So maybe he was a little sensitive when it came to all things medical, sue him! Actually, as Stark had pointed out after a little mishap that ended in a mostly trashed laboratory, Bucky did not have the funds to pay for any of the highly specialized stuff that might or might not have met its end at his hand(s), so suing him would be wasting more money and nothing else.

“Yeah, first thing on anyone’s mind right now is clones,” Natasha replied dryly, backhanding Bucky’s shoulder none too gently. If it were not for the fact that Bucky actually had a rather rudimentary sense of touch installed in his metal arm, the gesture would have done nothing, but hurt the back of Natasha’s hand slightly. Not that she was going to ever mention or admit that.

“Don’t make it sound like that’s ridiculous. You know it’s not,” Bucky protested. He really meant it as well. Natasha might be right that Coulson’s claim of trying to find a cure for the virus still spreading all over the world and apparently even affecting at least some superpowered beings and aliens was legit and believable. That did not mean they would not look into cloning experiments once they had found a cure though.

“Ready to bleed for your country and the world once again, Captain?” Natasha questioned in the most patriotic tone she was able to fake, ignoring Bucky’s antics. Chances were he would crank it up, until it could not be ignored because of it, but Natasha quite liked that prospect.

“Always,” Steve retorted, aiming for sassy and ending up much too earnest, if the looks Bucky and Natasha shot him were any indication. 

“Make sure they’re less stupid than the original, Red,” Bucky advised with a snort. “Nobody wants a stupid clone.”

“Jerk,” Steve replied, before he could stop himself. Not that he would have wanted to stop himself under the circumstances. If Bucky could dish out stupid shit like he currently was, he had to take some as well.

“Clone-daddy,” Bucky shot back, moving out of the way of Natasha’s elbow, before it could hit him square in the chest. As much as he hated to watch Natasha walk away with Steve, he damn sure liked to watch her go. Besides, Bucky expected her to at least come and say goodbye before she left.

Steve had to admit - only to himself, not to anyone else - that he was rather glad when Natasha led him away to a somewhat remote spot in the jet. The bantering with Bucky was nice and a much needed piece of normality, but it was more strenuous than Steve wanted to acknowledge as well. The same went for the back and forth with Loki that Steve found himself engaged in all too frequently. And damn, did he like that back and forth, but they were both too fatigued to actually follow through and get somewhere before they had to stop.

Sitting down more heavily than he would have liked, Steve offered his arm to Natasha as a sign that he was ready.

“So, you and Loki,” Natasha stated just as she pushed the needle into Steve’s arm. That way he had more than one reason for flinching at least. Besides, Natasha had meant to speak to Steve about that particular topic anyway and if he thought she would spare him, because he was only just coming down from an actual life threatening fever, he was wrong.

“I have no idea what Bucky told you, but no,” Steve replied, not as convincingly as he would have liked. It was the truth though, there was nothing of the sort that Natasha wanted to hear to tell. In fact, it looked like Natasha and Bucky had more to share when it came to that sort of thing. Not that Steve had not suspected and maybe even sort of known already, but to actually see them kiss had been something else anyway.

“Mhm,” Natasha hummed as she watched the vial fill up with Steve’s blood. 

“No, I mean it, Nat,” Steve insisted, hissing through his teeth when Natasha changed vials and he felt the pull of the needle anew. While Steve generally did not make much of a fuss over medical procedures that were deemed necessary, he did not like them any more than Bucky did. Hell, ever since the reveal that Shield had been undermined by Hydra for decades, he hated them even more. The fact that Natasha was the one drawing blood did not help much, when Steve knew that somebody else would work on it later on. The fact that Tony and Bruce were involved with that part did help though.

“And you don’t sound heartbroken about it at all,” Natasha commented, giving Steve a smirk that he would definitely hate. Heartbroken was overstating anyway, but it was closer than Steve would like to think. It would have been cute, if… no, actually it was cute, the fact that it bugged the hell out of Bucky notwithstanding. 

“Hey,” Steve complained, which had nothing to do with Natasha finally pulling the needle out of his arm and putting a cotton swab drenched in disinfectant over the puncture wound. In fact, Steve had been poked with enough needles by enough people over the years to say that Natasha had done very well, even compared to some professionals. It probably helped that knowing who she was making bleed did not get her hands shaking like it did with other people at times.

“Who’d have thought that Thor’s psychotic, villainous, liar of a brother would not fall into the arms of the purest Avenger out there at moment’s notice?” Natasha snarked, putting everything she had brought away neatly, to be examined later. She had made a mental note to ask Bruce about possible clones, but only so she could tell Bucky later. 

Steve frowned deeply at the descriptions of both himself and Loki Natasha had chosen to give. To be fair, he understood exactly what had shaped everyone’s opinions of Loki’s character, but that people would still use descriptives like ‘pure’ when speaking of Steve… . Of course, Natasha had only said the purest Avenger, which narrowed it down to a very specific group of people for comparison and maybe… . 

“Wait. He did?” Natasha suddenly exclaimed. “Fuck me sideways.”

As much as Steve wanted to say that this time around Natasha’s mind reading powers - that were completely unofficial and speculative, which was unfair looking at how everyone else was owning up to their powers - had failed her, that would have been a lie. Loki had quite literally fallen into Steve’s arms a couple of times over the days, even after he claimed that Steve was wrong when he thought Loki could change his ways. Steve would not allow himself to hope that meant Loki was still thinking about it, especially not now that Natasha was still reading his mind, just waiting for something stupid to come up so she could whack it out of him.

“Bucky is a bad influence,” Steve stated instead. Natasha had just used the same curse that Steve had after hearing it from Bucky about a thousand times. Neither of them would have ever used language like that without Bucky. That was his story and he would stick to it.

“Hands off, Steve, that bad boy is mine,” Natasha quipped, since Bucky had pretty much said the same in regards to her earlier anyway. It was strangely nice to have this out in the open when it came to Steve at least, even if it had not been a national secret before anyway. “Go get yourself your own.”

Steve chuckled and gave Natasha a pat on the shoulder. The grateful smile followed when she made ready to leave without needling him any further in any sense of the word. 

When they walked back to the main area, Thor was busy stuffing his face with the poptarts that must have been a part of their newest supply delivery and Loki took the chance to very conveniently and absolutely accidentally stumble into Steve. Natasha did not even have to grin at him for Steve to know that the way he automatically reached out to steady Loki and then keep him close for longer than strictly necessary had not gone unnoticed. Oh well, she had said to get his own bad boy and despite what Loki was saying, maybe he was about ready to be caught.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this story is nearing its end very very fast.  
> I have another one I could be posting after this. Steve/Loki is my ship and I will go down with it.  
> Let me know, if you are interested.

“Asgardians are so damn weird.”

“What brought that piece of wisdom on?”

“So, we’re having dinner, and suddenly Thor gets all emotional over the nearing end of this… vacation.”

“Sounds like Thor to me.”

“He said vacation, Red. Vacation!”

“I heard you the first time.”

“Okay, ready for the really crazy part?”

“Ready for anything crazy, to be honest.”

“Sure looked like Loki wanted to agree.”

Steve could only guess why the fact that they would all be out of the quinjet in two more days had caused Bucky to search out the bottom of a vodka bottle, or several, once again. He would have thought that Bucky would be happy about the news, even if their quarantaine would not be lifted much earlier than expected. The end was still in sight.

Steve himself could hardly wait to get out of the confined space now that he was generally feeling much better. A little fatigued and not quite on top of his game still, but not really sick anymore. To be fair, the quinjet did provide enough space for them for sure, but Steve was not used to having his freedom of movement limited like this all the same.

Of course, the moment they stepped outside, there was at least one thing that would not change for the better. Technically, Loki had still attacked a city and was their prisoner because of it. As little as that had affected anything for the past days, it was going to come back with a vengeance as soon as normal rules applied once more.

“Are you going to make a move, or shall I?” Loki questioned when Steve had been lost in his thoughts for a little too long. 

Steve shrugged noncommittally in answer, to which Loki rolled his eyes before he reached for one of the white pawns on the chessboard and moved it for Steve instead. It was the move Steve would have made anyway. In fact, Loki was scarily good at just taking over the game and playing both sides as if Steve was actually playing against him. Sure, they had played a whole lot of chess for the past few nights when they could not sleep and during the day when there was nothing else to do, but it was still fascinating to watch. Fascinating enough that Steve often just sat back and watched Loki play only giving his input when he thought Loki was making a move that Steve would not have. He had to assume that Loki made those moves at least now and then just to see if Steve was paying attention anyway.

“What are you going to do when we-?” Steve asked when Loki took his horse in a move that Steve had not seen coming. It was not only that he had been busy contemplating other matters either, Loki had simply made a move that Steve would not have thought of. It was quite remarkable as well, since Loki kept making moves with Steve’s chess pieces that he would have thought of as well.

“Beg your pardon?” Loki frowned deeply, looking up from the board to give Steve a completely bewildered look.

“I mean,” Steve hurried to explain himself, clearing his throat when he immediately realized that it was not quite as easy as it should have been. In a way, it was like playing a completely different game of chess on top of the one they were already playing. Both of them were not going by the conventional rules either, which did not make anything easier. “Let’s be honest, you’re going to escape, either immediately or after a while. Then what?”

“I don’t tend to plan that far ahead,” Loki replied with an unconcerned shrug that was as fake as his light hearted attitude. Apparently, he realized that Steve was looking through him as well, so he changed his demeanor to something much sharper, with the underlying threat of danger. “Of course, that is something you would do. So what do you assume I should be planning?”

“You know what I think,” Steve answered, completely unimpressed. Loki had had more than enough chances to either hurt or kill him over the days and he had not attempted to do either, quite the contrary. While Steve had to assume that the gloves would come off once they stepped back into the outside world, he was sure he had nothing to fear that moment. Hell, if he got his way, he would not have to worry about the outside world either.

“While I find your assumption somewhat flattering, telepathy is neither a power I possess nor one I wish to master,” Loki commented, focussing back on the chessboard to have an excuse to avoid Steve’s eyes.

“I think you should give us a chance,” Steve finally stated, even though he was completely convinced that Loki already knew what he was going to say. He was just as sure that it would do Loki good to be a part of a team that, for all its faults, consisted of people who could rely on each other and respected each other.

“Of course, our way is the only righteous one,” Loki declared, suddenly looking exactly like Steve from where he was looking back at him from the other side of the table. He was still playing chess like Loki would though.

“Stop it,” Steve demanded, putting on his completely unimpressed face. Usually, that would have been exactly the reaction this kind of mocking courtesy of Loki evoked as well. This time around Steve felt much too personally offended to be genuinely unimpressed though.

“Why are you allowed to openly mock me and expect me not to return the favor?” Loki questioned, raising an eyebrow that thankfully actually belonged to him at Steve. Most of the time Loki’s shape shifting act was rather annoying, since he was using it against them in battle whenever he thought it would give him an advantage. Sometimes Steve was in the right position to find it quite impressive or even amusing. That moment he was simply glad to see the real Loki again. 

“I’m not… I was offering you something,” Steve clarified, which strangely felt much more necessary than before, even though Loki really should have already known. Okay, the idea of bringing a villain in just to offer him a spot on the team might seem laughable, but Thor would absolutely love it and Steve was definitely on board, so it was not like Loki would not have people on his side from the start. Steve was not quite sure if Bucky would agree immediately, but he would come around eventually. Besides, not everyone had been on board with sending Bucky on missions at first either, but that was in the past now.

“Something I don’t want, mind you,” Loki pointed out coolly, taking the white king with his castle to end the game. Steve had apparently lost once again. He had not paid enough attention toward the end to say for sure that Loki had not used their rather weird way of playing to cheat, but he doubted he had. Steve lost much more often than he won no matter which way they were playing anyway.

“See, that’s where I think you’re lying,” Steve replied, fixing Loki’s eyes with his. Steve had no doubt that they could be sitting here until morning, just staring at each other, if one of them did not think of a better way to settle this first.

“This is a much too nice evening to be arguing, Captain,” Loki finally stated, breaking eye-contact to locate all the chess pieces and put them back on the board where they belonged. The white pieces on Steve’s side, the black on his own. “Why don’t we play for it?”

“Play for what exactly?” Steve asked, because Loki might have gained some of his trust and a whole lot of his feelings lately, but that did not mean Steve forgot that he was dealing with a trickster here. He could assume what Loki meant, of course he could, but it would not do not to know what exactly the deal Loki was proposing entailed.

“I win, you let the matter rest and simply see what will happen,” Loki explained, putting his own king back on its starting point on the board and then collecting the white king to do the same. “You win, I will stay to see what offer you can make me.”

“Deal,” Steve agreed, nodding toward the board to give Loki the sign to start.

Loki grinned and made his first move. After waiting for a couple of seconds, he huffed out an amused breath and, under Steve’s watchful eye, made the move for the other side as well.

It was quite the sight to see Loki play a game much more intense than their usual matches against himself. If Steve had thought that Loki might err on the side of being too unfocused on Steve’s part, he was wrong. If anything, Loki was choosing the moves for Steve like he was much more invested than usually. It was just as well, since Steve would have had to tell him to up his game, if he had not. After all, Steve was determined to win this and his determination was not to be underestimated.

Still, Steve was surprised to see that Loki brought them to a situation where Steve could win or lose the match in one more move. He had to admit that he was holding his breath for a few moments before he realized that Loki had stopped moving all of a sudden.

“I think it would be fair, under the circumstances, for you to make your last move yourself,” Loki stated with a light shrug when Steve looked at him questioningly. His eyes were once again sharp in a way that let Steve know that he was not the only one this meant more than had been spoken blatantly before too.

Steve propped his chin up on his hands for a few long moments, considering his options. He could take Loki’s queen with his and declare checkmate, which would obviously mean that he had won the game. Pretty much any other move would allow Loki to win on his next turn. It looked like an obvious choice, but the fact that Loki had left it up to him to decide had to be factored into his decision as well. Loki would not let Steve decide if he won or lost their game, if there was nothing that he thought Steve knew nothing about at stake. That was not how Loki worked.

Reaching for the white king with his left, Steve tipped it over while putting his right hand on the table next to the board, palm up.

“What was I expecting?” Loki huffed, a small smile tugging at his lips. He did not take Steve’s hand, but stood up and left the table instead.

To be fair, that was not what Steve had hoped would happen, but it was very much what he had expected.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who left a review on this work! They really mean a lot to me.  
> I hadn't published any fanfic in some years, feeling like I had no good stories left and thinking I couldn't write anything worth publishing anymore, so really thanks so much to everyone who took some time out of their day to give me a reaction! :-)
> 
> Merry Christmas everyone!

“So, are the clones done?”

“You know, I didn’t want to tell you like this.”

“A whole world full of Steve Rogers… that’s scary as all hell, Red.”

“Actually, what I was going to say was that since we got replacements now it has been decided that we can shoot you bunch into the sun.”

“Maybe Loki would stop being cold for once.”

“But I would be so very cold without you, Зайчик.”

“We can’t have that, can we?”

“See you in two hours.”

Bucky shook his head in amusement when the call ended and went to see what kind of clothes he had in the jet that were halfway presentable. For a moment, he was tempted to just stick to the comfy sweatpants and stained tank top combination he had on, just daring everyone to say a word about it with what Natasha called his trademarked old man Winter Soldier look, but if everyone else went for dignified, so would he. Then again, how dignified Thor and Loki’s normal outfits were was up for debate in the first place, if anyone were to ask Bucky.

“Ready to get out of here?” Bucky asked when he found Steve must have had about the same idea he did. Apparently, finding all the pieces of the Captain America uniform in what had become a rather large and thoroughly mixed heap of clothes over time was not quite that easy. Bucky bit his lip to stop himself from saying anything about responsible handling of equipment and pointing out that he knew exactly where every single piece of his own was. In theory at least Bucky could have gotten dressed back into exactly the same tac gear including equipment he had worn when they had gone on that godforsaken mission with his eyes closed. To be fair though, when Steve had taken his uniform off he had been more dead than alive, which was not half bad as excuses went.

“Been ready, Buck,” Steve replied, eyeing his uniform critically before he shrugged and decided to put it on anyway. Standing next to Thor and Loki in their battle outfits in any normal clothes always made Steve feel almost naked and he really could do without that feeling just then, especially since Loki had been broody and distant ever since their last chess game. The looks he had shot Steve every now and then had done a bangup job making him feel naked under his scrutiny as well, but there was very little he could do against that just then.

“Really? Aren’t you gonna miss your bunk buddy?” Bucky asked, nudging Steve with a none too gentle metal elbow to the side.

Steve shrugged noncommittally and went to put on his uniform without giving more of an answer. He was sure that Bucky understood much more than he wanted to say anyway.

* * *

Stepping outside the quinjet, things at once almost were like the past days had not happened at all. Except of course that back then Steve would not have thought twice about seeing Loki punished for his crimes once again. As things were,Steve stood by his estimation that Loki would escape sooner rather than later anyway, but he still wished for things to go differently than could be expected usually.

“Welcome back to the land of the living and the free,” Tony stated the moment they walked down the ramp. “Except for you. The Vault is waiting.”

Steve could not help glancing toward Loki. Not that it was a surprise that Loki’s journey was not over here. It also was not exactly a surprise that there were already some agents waiting to take Loki away. Steve tried very hard not to wince even a little at the special cuffs waiting for Loki as well. A necessary precaution, of course, but… .

“What the-?” one of the agents suddenly exclaimed, which directed Steve’s attention toward the thick smoke coming from the jet and quickly engulfing them and most of the rooftop.

“Jarvis, stop this!” Tony ordered over the coughing that had ensued from all sides. Whatever it was, the smoke came from the quinjet and Jarvis should be able to at least tell them what was going on. Ideally, the AI would turn it off before they had to deal with lung related problems of a different kind though.

It only took a few long moments until the smoke started to clear, allowing all of them to breathe better and see further than an inch again.

“No worries, friends, I have-” Thor declared victoriously, before the smoke dispersed enough to allow him a good view of the arm he had in his grasp.

“Me, Thor, you got me,” Bucky stated, even though it was already obvious to everyone. To be fair, Bucky was hardly surprised to see that Loki was gone and while a part of him did panic immediately at the realization that Steve had vanished as well, that too was no huge surprise. The fact that Thor had actually thought that he was holding on to his brother was puzzling though. “What? The metal was no giveaway?”

Not far from them, but so far unbeknownst to anyone other than Steve, Loki was fast approaching the edge of the building. Until Steve reached out to grab his upper arm, that was.

“It seems I underestimated you,” Loki commented casually, whirling around to face Steve, but apparently not preparing for violence. Yet. Steve knew all too well how quickly that could change. He had had the bruises to show for it in the past and might very well get new ones in the near future.

“What? You can figure out my next moves, but I can’t predict yours?” Steve shot back more ballsy than he could back up realistically. This once though, his prediction had been just right. If Loki had not meant for him to follow in the first place, under which circumstances his prediction had still been correct, but only because Loki had meant for him to figure it out.

“Very impressive,” Loki stated in a much more good natured tone than they would have arrived at right around this point any other time. 

“Loki,” Steve started to say, before he realized that he did not know what he even wanted to say. He could hardly just let Loki go, even if he wanted to. There was no guarantee whatsoever that Loki would not go and get people hurt just because the moment he was freed. Hell, Loki himself had not even made any attempt at claiming that he would do better, or at least turn his attention to some place not on Earth. At the same time, Steve felt like he could not turn Loki over to the agents, if he did not want to put the last nail in the coffin of whatever strange connection they had had. It all came down to one thing really. “Offer still stands.”

“Becoming a part of your team remains unappealing to me, Captain,” Loki pointed out, keeping his tone neutral, even as his eyes fixed Steve’s with such intensity, that there was no way to miss that he was telling Steve much more than he was actually saying. If only Steve knew how to speak that language.

“What about-?” Steve swallowed hard, willing himself to find his goddamn voice and just say it. It was not so much that he did not speak the language Loki did in this case, though he definitely did not in others, but that it was a dangerous path to trod. The fact that Loki was the tour guide Steve would have to follow did not help exactly. Then again, when had Steve Rogers ever known when not to run head first toward danger the moment he felt it was needed? “What about being a part of my life?”

The smile that graced Loki’s lips alone would have been worth the risk, but when Loki shook off Steve’s hand, not to continue his escape, but to grab him by the shoulders and kiss him, it was quickly becoming one of the best decisions Steve had ever made. After being simply overwhelmed for an embarrassingly long moment, Steve started to kiss back. Heated as the kiss might be, Steve could not help noticing that Loki’s lips were noticeably cooler than his. It seemed strangely fitting, all things considered.

“Try not to kill anyone,” Steve whispered once Loki pulled away ever so slightly. Who was he kidding? He would have never turned Loki in anyway.

“Is that your condition for warming me throughout future cold nights?” Loki asked with a smirk that was not quite as infuriating as Steve usually tended to find them. It helped that it did not sound like Loki was saying that he was not planning to make the concession Steve had asked for.

The fact that Steve had meant to quip about sealing the deal with a kiss anyway left him somewhat prepared for Loki moving in once more to do exactly that.

“Take care,” Steve said with a small smile, letting Loki go just in time for Loki to put his palms square against his chest and pushing him off him with enough force to make Steve fly back a couple of feet and right into Thor.

“Loki!” Thor bellowed, while Steve found he could not even be mad about the rough handling as Loki stepped over the side of the building. When Thor and Steve managed to get back to their feet and look down, there was nothing to be seen unsurprisingly.

“He’ll turn up again before long,” Bucky commented with a shrug, coming to stand next to Steve and putting a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s just hope he learned his lesson about viruses and checking where he’s going.”

Steve huffed out a laugh at that even while Thor went away muttering about younger brothers being plagues or something alike. It was the friendliest thing Steve heard about Loki until Tony and the agents had left as well. Actually, Steve did not hear anything about Loki afterward at all.

“Hey, Stevie, no offense, but I think I’ll quarantine myself with somebody else for a while,” Bucky stated once Natasha came into view. They had to make up for some lost time after all and to be fair, Bucky sort of expected Steve to want some alone time after everything as well.

Steve only nodded and then shook his head in amusement and laughed when Bucky immediately fake-sneezed the moment Natasha came into range and declared that they had to make sure the virus did not spread further than her bedroom. 

So in the end, Steve stood on the rooftop alone, wondering what to do next. The ultimate return to normalcy.


End file.
